


Make The Most Of It

by greygerbil



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 00:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14964758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: After he misses out on a spot in the Grand Prix Final, omega Georgi's career is declared over by the Russian Skating Federation and he is matched with an alpha to create what will hopefully be very athletic children. Their choice is a surprise to Georgi, even if perhaps it shouldn't be.





	Make The Most Of It

**Author's Note:**

> Written for YOI Omegaverse Week 2018, Day 1: AU: Arranged Marriage.
> 
> (Well, sort of a marriage, anyway.)
> 
> The dystopian AU tag is mostly just for the control of the sports ministry over the athletes; no atom bombs or zombies are involved.

Georgi stood in a cramped back room at the Bordeaux’s Meriadeck Ice Rink with his eyes glued to the monitor as he waited for the announcement of Cao Bin’s scores. The Trophée Éric Bompard was the last Grand Prix Final qualifier competition this year and whether or not he would go all hinged on the score Cao had managed to eke out in his free skate. Georgi had done reasonably well, a little better than Cao by his calculations, but had messed up a step sequence and had a quad Salchow turn into a double in the short program yesterday, shortcomings Cao didn’t have to make up for. It was possibly the first time Georgi had actively wished for a competitor to take a fall, preferably one so severe he would need some time to get back on track with his program. It hadn’t happened.

“The free skate score is 186.45, bringing Cao Bin to a total score of…”

The last part was already lost to Georgi. He didn’t need to hear it, he had done the math in his head all day. Cao had beaten him by two points for the last qualifying spot in the Grand Prix Final.

The world was turning soft at the edges. He couldn’t really feel his hands anymore.

“It’s just the Grand Prix, Georgi. There’s still Europeans and Worlds,” Chris said by his side, patting him on the back.

Georgi couldn’t say what his expression looked like, but it was apparently bad enough Chris felt the need to try and cheer him up. He closed his eyes as he felt his throat squeeze shut.

Someone grabbed his arm. He looked up at Yakov, who wordlessly marched him out of the room.

-

Last season, a minor injury coupled with a few unfortunately placed off-days, at the Grand Prix Final and the Europeans, had brought the attention of the Russian Skating Federation down on Georgi. At twenty-six, a month away from twenty-seven now, he was drawing close to the finishing line, anyway, but they had placed a more definitive ultimatum for him at a private meeting back in August.

“This year, we need to see you in the Grand Prix, at least,” he had been told by a pale-faced young man with hair and eyes the same colour of jet black. “If you can’t prove to us that you are still at the top of your game, your talents should be put to other uses.”

His parents had signed the contract that allowed the Ministry of Sports and its subservient bodies to make use of his nature as an omega, one that all internationally competing Russian athletes of alpha and omega designation had to agree to. It was a breeding program, essentially, which had long been established in several countries and along a multitude of sports programs and even adjacent artistic endeavours such as the most prestigious dance companies. Throwing two pro athletes together to make a baby didn’t guarantee you an ace, and the children could still outright refuse, but since both natural talent as well as influence from at least one parent was guaranteed, it worked quite a lot of the time. Sometimes, people were married across relevant professions, like Yakov and Lilia, though in that case it had eventually become clear they wouldn’t be able to have children. Georgi had skated alongside many of these specially bred offspring and a lot of them had been hard to beat. Victor, of course, was forever the ultimate poster child of the potentially amazing results of such a manufactured union.

For an alpha, it was not the worst deal. A couple of heats with an omega, essentially a sperm donation, and they had done their duty, though if they weren’t hard-hearted, they’d probably feel responsible for the resulting kids as well, but they were at least not obliged to raise them. For omegas, it was usually the end of their career. Since they weren’t too many of them because highly competitive behaviour was at least considered slightly odd in omegas, they were also in short supply. No wonder the Skating Federation had been waiting with bated breath for Georgi to finally make a misstep big enough that they could justify pulling him off the roster. No doubt, Georgi considered bitterly, as he packed up his clothes in the hotel room that evening, the more than promising Yuri Plisetsky moving up to seniors next season had something to do with it, too. Georgi wasn’t needed anymore.

When he’d been ten, it all hadn’t seemed like that bad a deal. People said he had a lot of promise and Georgi had liked being seen as outstanding. Every skater in Russia signed the contract if they wanted to go to ISU competitions. Retirement had seemed a century away at that age.

The weight and meaning of what was lying ahead had become clearer to him as the years piled on, but he had been lucky, really. He survived puberty without problems. He never had the kind of injury that took him out of the game. Even at twenty-six, he had still fought off rows of younger skaters and kept hold of his medals at Nationals.

But now Georgi had lost his chance for the Grand Prix, and now he owed the government two children.

-

“In case you can stay in St. Petersburg, I would like to keep you on in the rink,” Yakov said, somewhere above mainland Europe, taking a deep breath of the dry, stuffy air in the plane. “You have always had a hand for the novices – and you have patience, which is almost more important.”

Georgi looked up from the book he was not actually reading. Yakov wasn’t looking at him, but at the back of the seat in front of them. His face was stern as usual, but he glanced uncertainly Georgi’s way for a brief moment.

“Unless you’d rather not think about skating in the future.”

“No… I like that idea.”

“Good.”

Yakov’s rink and its inhabitants had been the closest thing to family he had had in the last fifteen years. To lose it alongside his career, his favourite form of expression, while he was carrying a stranger’s child would have been too much at once. With shaking fingers, Georgi rustled the pages of the book.

“Do you know who they’ll put me with?”

“No,” Yakov said after too long a pause. “I have a few ideas, but don’t worry about it for now. Just get some sleep.”

Georgi leaned his head against the back of the seat, staring at the cabin lights.

-

The letter from the Skating Ferederation came in a heavy, off-white envelope with his address neatly hand-written across the front. Georgi left it on the kitchen table for a while, eyeing it like it contained an explosive, before he finally picked up a knife to slice it open and take hold of the paper inside.

He was too agitated to read the sentences in the right order, scanning the paragraphs nervously as soon as he was past ‘Dear Mr. Popovich,’ even if going in order probably would have netted him a faster result. The last two days and nights, he had been playing through the choices in his head. Though not often at the top spot, he had been reliable for a long while, so he figured they would put him with someone else who had collected medals each season for most of their career. There were several available alpha figure skaters who matched that description. Sergei Tokharev, a pair skater with two gold medals and serious potential to get more, had just started mentioning in interviews this season that he would like to have children young. Then there were dancers from the Mariinsky and Bolshoi ballets, speed skaters, hockey players…

In the end, it was a lot easier, a lot closer than he’d expected. It made sense. He’d been the silver to his gold in the national competitions for a dozen years – and yet, Georgi had often felt like he was so much further set apart from him, since his genius was always hailed as inimitable. Maybe that was why it hadn’t occurred to him that the Skating Federation would see him as a suitable match for Victor Nikiforov.

The letter said he should consider the opportunity an honour.

-

Though it was his free day, Georgi went to the rink that evening, hoping to be alone with his thoughts. As he opened the door from the changing rooms, however, Victor was alone on the ice, skating ponderously large circles, forward and backward. Even in simple movements like that, he always looked like he was performing for a text book visual aid, with perfect posture and impeccable balance, gliding on the ice like he had been born to do it.

Georgi stood silent in the door until Victor turned and caught sight of him. He stopped himself with a quick twist of his skates on the ice. They looked at each other along the length of the empty rink.

“Did you get a letter, too?” Georgi asked.

“Today.”

Victor, standing on the middle of the rink, kept the distance between them as Georgi leaned against the boards.

“I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to continue if I didn’t make the Grand Prix Final,” Georgi said, quietly. “They told me before this season.”

“Oh,” Victor made, snapping his fingers, “that’s why you skated like a first time junior in the qualifiers. I haven’t seen you that nervous in ages.”

Georgi frowned. Of course he’d been nervous! Every skate in the qualifying events had felt like fighting for his life. The pressure had cut the legs out under him and blocked him from the creativity he needed to do his best.

“It’s too late now,” he said, and though he wanted to be pissed at Victor, it felt like he should be apologizing. If them mating had been planned by the board for a while now, then if Georgi had held out another year, Victor wouldn’t have to bother with it, yet, either.

Victor scratched a line into the ice with his toe pick. He was inscrutable as always, smiling, but not in a way that told you anything about what went on behind his forehead.

“Why don’t you come on the ice? You’re wearing your skates.”

Georgi didn’t know what to do with that comment, but he took off his skate guards, anyway. The familiar glide of the ice felt steadier right now than walking on his feet.

“I figured they might want to get more than two children out of you,” Georgi said, after a long moment. “That surprised me.”

Victor laughed.

“They’ve tried, but they don’t have a lot to pressure me with. They want to keep me happy, after all. My original contract said two children and that’s that.”

“They probably won’t do in vitro,” Georgi murmured.

They both knew that, but it felt like something he needed to address, anyway. It would come up.

“No, they don’t usually if it works the normal way. It does, right?”

“I can get my heats if I don’t take suppressors.”

It was on the last word that Georgi’s voice finally cracked, crumbling alongside the apparent wall of indifference that shell-shock had allowed him to keep upright so far. Seconds later, he felt tears running hot down his face and went to his knees. He didn’t want to talk to Victor about his heats when Victor was looking at him with that frozen smile like he was a reporter. He wanted an alpha who loved him, and a family to raise together instead of two children from a man who was fulfilling his duty to the country, and he should have known better than dream about that because he’d always known his contract, after all.

“Zhora?”

Victor sounded disquieted. He didn’t like it when people cried around him, Georgi knew, but he couldn’t help him with that now. He’d just have to deal.

“Are you afraid of me?”

The strange question made Georgi look up. Victor stood before him and was bending down a little, half his face hidden by silver strands.

“Why would I be afraid?” Georgi asked, choked.

“You started crying when you talked about your heats,” Victor said. “I’m not a brutal alpha.”

“I know you aren’t.”

He didn’t know, of course, not for certain. But he knew Victor. He was not the kind of person who enjoyed hurting others – at least not with more than a few callous words that he considered necessary.

Victor knelt down in front of him. Georgi pressed his palms against his eyes before he lowered his hands to the ice.

“Do you even like me?” he asked Victor, quietly.

“Of course I like you. Wouldn’t it make more sense for me to ask?”

Georgi looked at him, uncomprehending.

“You would have a lot more gold medals if I hadn’t been born so close to you. And now I’m taking you off the ice with my children.”

“You’re not. You didn’t write that letter.”

“I was worried it might feel that way to you. I mean, you’re always so emotional,” Victor said, glancing at Georgi’s tear-stained face.

“Fuck you, Vitya,” Georgi said, tiredly. As if this was an overreaction. He doubted you could overreact to this situation.

Again, Victor laughed.

Georgi briefly wanted to scream at Victor, but everything felt a little bit more like real life then because that was not at all a new impulse. Narrowing his eyes at him, Georgi wondered if Victor had provoked him for just that reason. Before he could come to a conclusion, however, Victor grabbed him by the chin and tilted his head towards him.

“Zhora,” he asked into the silence of the rink, his voice echoing a little, “do you think you could be happy about being my omega?”

Georgi didn’t manage an answer, couldn’t even really parse the sentence. Was Victor serious?

“I’ve never really thought about love because I knew this letter would come and I might read the name of some stranger, or someone I dislike,” Victor said. “When I saw it was you, I was relieved.”

Hesitantly, Georgi nodded his head, his heartbeat slowing a little. Victor was right. He could have ended up with someone he really _was_ afraid of. Someone he had never watched with rapt attention. Someone he hadn’t spent years training, competing, travelling alongside.

It just surprised him Victor thought of him as a lesser evil, too.

“My parents hated each other,” Victor continued, lowering his gaze for a moment. “They never talked when they didn’t have to. They tried to stay together for my sake, but all that did was make them dislike me, too.”

Georgi felt a swell of sympathy at the flicker of true hurt he saw in his face which so rarely came through Victor’s defences.

“I don’t want our children to grow up that way. So... why don’t we give it a try?”

There was so little alpha assuredness in his voice, only hope and fear mixed in equal parts, and in that moment Georgi thought that perhaps it wouldn’t be very difficult at all to fall in love with him. Impulsively, he stretched and wrapped his arms around Victor’s neck. Victor lost his balance and slumped sideways, blades hissing on the ice before they lifted off.

“Yes,” Georgi said, voice barely more than a whimper. “I don’t want them to be unhappy. Or you.”

“Okay, then stop crying now, _please_.”

Georgi had to smile through the tears. He sat back a little to wipe them away. Victor waited for him to finish before he knocked their foreheads together.

“You know, I didn’t know what to do with myself for next season, but I guess there’s still a challenge. I have an omega to charm.”

It was a very romantic thing to say considering they had been hand-matched by functionaries, a little bit like what Georgi had imagined when he was young enough to forget the contract on a regular basis.

“When have you ever failed to get a prize you wanted, Vitya?”

Victor just grinned and pressed his nose against Georgi’s neck. It wasn’t a kiss, but it was intimate nonetheless. Georgi turned his head. He smelled Victor through the product in his hair. His scent was almost too sweet for an alpha, but unique in that. Georgi knew it, of course, as well as he knew the rink and the way from here to his home. Now his whole life felt cast in a starkly different light, though.

Slowly, Victor separated from him and disentangled himself to get to his feet. He helped Georgi up. As they moved across the ice together, they were skating hand in hand for the first time.


End file.
